Polling and Public Opinion

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Robert Eisinger, Lewis & Clark College

Experts

Bruce E. Altschuler SUNY Oswego 315-312-3451 Presidency, campaigns and elections, New York state politics, political parties Bethany A. Barratt Roosevelt University 312-341-3768 Foreign aid, trade, human rights, British and Canadian foreign policy Barry C. Burden Harvard University 617-495-4249 Voter turnout, third parties, campaigns, surveys, primaries Roger Davidson University of Maryland 805-898-9176 Congress, public opinion and government George C. Edwards III Texas A & M University 979-845-9764 Presidency, public policy, public opinion Henry Flores St. Mary's University 210-436-3214 Voting rights, Latino politics, voting behavior, urban politics Doug Foyle Wesleyan University 860-685-5049 Public opinion, elections, foreign policy, national security  John Geer Vanderbilt University 615-343-5746 Elections, campaigns, public opinion, presidency and political parties Diane Heith St. Johns University, NY 718-990-5268 Presidency, public opinion, Congress, American politics Susan Herbst Temple University 215-204-7747 American politics, mass communication, public opinion Lawrence Jacobs University of Minnesota 612-625-3384 Public opinion, elections, media coverage, legislative and executive policymaking, social and environmental policy Ted G. Jelen University of Nevada-Las Vegas 702-895-3355 Religion and politics, abortion, Catholic politics, electoral behavior Chris Lawrence Millsaps College 601-974-1438 Mississippi politics Jeffrey Levine Eagleton Institute of Politics 732-932-9384 ext. 240 Sandy Maisel Colby College 207-859-5307 Congressional elections, candidate recruitment, third parties, redistricting, Jewish candidates Michael Margolis University of Cincinnati 513-556-3310 Internet and electoral politics Quin Monson Brigham Young University 801-422-8017 Pippa Norris Harvard University 617-495-1475 Comparative elections worldwide Jessica Perez-Monforti University of Texas Pan American 956-381-3346 Latino/hispanic politics, public opinion, women in U.S. politics, race politics Andrew Perrin University of North Carolina 919-962-6876 Deliberation, political culture, ideology, protest, media Eric Plutzer Penn State University 814-865-6576 Richard S. Randall New York University 212-998-8513 Brandon Rottinghaus University of Idaho 208-885-7401 Polling, public opinion, presidential leadership Robert Shapiro Columbia University 212-854-3944 Public opinion, policymaking, political leadership, the mass media, applications of statistical methods Fred Solop University of Northern Arizona 928-523-3135 Elections, public opinion, American politics, social movements, racial profiling  Lester Spence Washington University St. Louis 314-369-5513 D. Stephen Voss University of Kentucky 859-257-4313 Voting behavior, race and representation Stephen Wayne Georgetown University 202-687-5908 Elections, leadership, relations with Congress Leonard Williams Manchester College 260-982-5335 Political ideology and American politics

Polling as we know it has been around since the mid-1930s. Since then, each president, with the exception of Harry S. Truman, has used private polls to gauge public opinion. Lou Harris polled for John F. Kennedy. Harris' former assistant, Oliver Quayle, conducted polls for Lyndon B. Johnson. Richard Nixon employed two polling firms, and Jimmy Carter hired Pat Caddell to monitor public attitudes. Ronald Reagan's pollster, Richard Wirthlin, polled quite extensively during Reagan's eight year presidential tenure. Bob Teeter polled for George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton employed several pollsters, including Stan Greenberg and Doug Schoen.

One recurring theme in the history of presidential polling is the increasing politicization of presidential polling. Whereas FDR sought the assistance of Hadley Cantril, a Princeton University psychology professor with no ideological axe to grind, and Dwight Eisenhower read Gallup polls, the candidate-centered, media-centered politics has resulted in presidents' (and other politicians', for that matter) using public opinion data as a means to market themselves and their policies. The media polls (Gallup, CBS, New York Times, etc...) serve a valuable function to candidates, but their private polls, conducted by partisans, assist the campaigns in obtaining information only to be shared by likeminded individuals.

Both the Democrat and Republican parties have been polling extensively in the 2004 election. Congressional Democrats are seeking majorities in the House and Senate; Republicans wish to preserve their majority status. Poll questions about the economy and Iraq are likely to predominate these polls, but one also senses that questions about values and social issues are also emerging. While neither party has provided their poll questions for public consumption, one can safely assume that both parties are not ignoring the recent discussions about gay marriages, or safety and security.

At the presidential level, Senator John Kerry is relatively unknown when compared to incumbent President Bush. Television commercials repeatedly refer to Kerry as "strong," oftentimes referring to his military record. President Bush's commercials emphasize an economy that is rebounding, and a president who has governed during wartime. Some of President Bush's advertisements also refer to Senator Kerry as a 'liberal' who changes positions on issues. If history repeats itself, then both of these commercials have been vetted by many focus groups, with certain words and phrases poll-tested and re-tested.

It is important to note that political polls vary in quality. Candidates who wish to convey a particular position (or to convey their opponents as weak) have been known to ask leading questions, sometimes arranged in an order so as to evoke an answer that otherwise would not have been given. Sample sizes also matter. While it is not in the best interest of a campaign to conduct an unrepresentative poll, their press releases may contain information about a segment of the poll (e.g., among men, X% of respondents think Y), yet the male sample may be too small to generate meaningful analyses. Focus groups, in-depth interviews with a small number (8-12) of respondents provide qualitative depth to questions that polls do not. However they are not representative of larger populations, and should not be interpreted as mini-polls.

To better determine the scope of a poll, interested observers should request a copy of the poll questions, in their totality, and the answers, all of them, in order to assess and interpret the poll without the campaign's assistance. Similarly and optimally, observers should seek to locate polls that ask similar questions, in order to determine if the campaign poll data are part of a larger trend, an outlier or aberration, or a combination of the two. The Roper Center (www.ropercenter.uconn.edu), and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [ICPSR] (www.icpsr.umich.edu) are two organizations that have been archiving various poll data.

Robert M. Eisinger is the Chair of the Political Science Department at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He is a graduate of Haverford College (B.A., 1987) and the University of Chicago (M.A. 1990, Ph.D. 1996), and is the author of The Evolution of Presidential Polling (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). He can be reached at eisinger@lewis.lclark.edu and 503-768-7642.

Recent Publications on Polling and Public Opinion

Edwards III, George C. 2004. "Riding High in the Polls: George W. Bush and Public Opinion." The George W. Bush Presidency. Colin Campbell and Bert Rockman, eds. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

Herbst, Susan. 2003. "Surveying and Influencing the Public: Polling in Politics and Industry." The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 7: The Modern Social Sciences. Ted Porter and Dorothy Ross, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heith, Diane. 2003. Polling to Govern: Public Opinion and Presidential Leadership Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Atkeson, Lonna Rae and Ronald B. Rapoport. 2003. "The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same: Examining Gender Differences in Political Attitude Expression, 1952-2000." Public Opinion Quarterly 67:4 (Winter): 495-521.

Edwards III, George C. 2003. On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Wayne, Stephen. 2003. The Road to the White House 2004: The Politics of Presidential Elections.Wadsworth.

Newman, Brian. 2003. "Integrity and Presidential Approval, 1980-2000." Public Opinion Quarterly 67:3 (Fall): 335-367.

Manza, J. and F.L. Cook. 2002 "A Democratic Polity?: Three Views of Policy Responsiveness to Public Opinion in the United States." American Politics Research 30:6 (November): 630-667.

Torres-Reyna, Oscar and Robert Y. Shapiro. 2002. "Trends: Defense and the Military." Public Opinion Quarterly 66:2 (June): 279-303.

Shaw, Greg M. and Robert Y. Shapiro. 2002. "Trends: Poverty and Public Assistance." Public Opinion Quarterly 66:2 66:1 (March): 105-128.

Geer, John G. 2000. "Assessing Attack Advertising: A Silver Lining." Campaign Reform: Insights and Evidence. Larry Bartels and Lynn Vavreck, eds. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Jacobs, Lawrence and Robert Y. Shapiro. 2000. Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Geer, John G., ed. 1998. Politicians and Party Politics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Geer, John G. 1996. From Tea Leaves to Opinion Polls: A Theory of Democratic Leadership. New York: Columbia University Press.

Herbst, Susan. 1993. Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Page, Benjamin and Robert Y. Shapiro. 1992. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.